Interactive voice response systems (IVRs) are well-known and well-used by corporations and governmental entities alike. In many popular applications, IVRs allow such entities to handle numerous incoming calls from consumers, employees, or constituents without requiring a prohibitively expensive number of phone operators. Companies may typically conserve operator resources for use with only the most complex tasks by off-loading simple informational tasks to the automated IVRs.
For example, the banking industry has made great use of IVR technology to conserve and reduce the expense of operator resources. Many bank customers call into a bank to find out simple items of information, such as account balance and last recorded deposits or withdrawals. This type of information is easily retrieved using the bank's database. An IVR may generally be programmed to answer the customer's phone call, determine the complexity of the information desired by the customer and then either present such simple retrieved information as account balance or account activity to the user using synthesized or pre-recorded voice messages, or transfer the customer to a live operator to handle the more complex tasks. This automation of the simple tasks relieves the operators from inefficient application and conserves their resource for the more complex tasks.
In general, modern IVRs were developed during the evolution and advancement of telecommunication networks and equipment. In early networks, most calling service functionality was built into telephone switches. However, because of the enormous expense of telephone switches, advances in calling services were typically delayed until the scheduled addition of new switches and/or replacement or upgrade of existing switches. Service providers typically had to wait until the equipment manufacturers determined the appropriate time to add such calling service functionality to the switches. This limitation generally prevented individual service providers from offering competitive or innovative features without most other providers offering the same switch-resident features.
As switching technology became more and more computerized, computers were connected to the switches and given portions of telephone services to perform in conjunction with the switches. The extension of telephone network functionality to these peripheral computers created an intelligent network (IN) allowing many of the functions previously executed by the switches to be performed by the peripheral computers. As more of the telephone services and functionality was extended to the peripheral computers, the new network architecture was renamed advanced intelligent network (AIN) architecture. The development of AIN architecture generally increased the availability of calling services, such as call waiting, call forwarding, and even interactive voice response. The services, thus, began to move from large and expensive telecommunication switches, to the new telephone system integrated computers now designated service control points (SCPs), intelligent peripherals (IPs), and service nodes (SNs).
SCPs and IPs are basically different hierarchical layers of the peripheral computers that were connected and integrated with the switching network. SCPs and IPs typically have call switching functionality, but also have the processing power to handle user voice and data input and make decisions based on this user input. Switches generally route calls to SCPs, which use IPs to perform many of the simple tasks, such as voice prompting or digit collection. In contrast, SNs are self-contained service providers that typically operate autonomously. A switch routes a call to an SN for services such as voicemail or fax server, which the SN performs without further delegation or input from the switch. Thus, much of the calling service functionality has been extended to peripheral computer/servers external to the switches in the AIN architecture.
Most IVRs are connected into the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in order to facilitate their call handling functions. With the increase in asynchronous communication facilities, such as the internet protocol (IP) network, IVRs will need to include the capability of providing voice response services to such asynchronous communication formats as voice over IP (VoIP). One such IVR system is disclosed in the aforementioned co-pending, commonly-assigned, U.S. Pat. No. 6,195,357, entitled, “INTERACTIVE INFORMATION TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM WITH UNIVERSAL TELEPHONY GATEWAY CAPABILITIES.” However, because VoIP and other asynchronous telecommunication formats are not yet widespread, the majority of IVR applications are still overwhelmingly synchronous and connect to the PSTN.
IVR capacity is typically limited by the number of ports installed in the system. The ports connect the IVR to the PSTN. For example, an IVR manufactured with only one port, may only be able to handle one phone call at a time. Because telephone calls on the PSTN are typically circuit-switched, synchronous connections, an entire circuit path is reserved for the phone connection for the duration of the call. Even when nothing is being transmitted between callers, the circuit generally remains open and, thus, a connected IVR port will usually remain busy for the duration of the call or, at least, the duration of the voice application executed by the IVR. Once the voice response application has been completed, with the phone call either handled or forwarded to the appropriate employee or agent, the IVR may be able to answer the next call as soon as the port is made available. Therefore, IVRs are generally manufactured and customized according to the buyer's expected call traffic.
Typically, IVRs are more expensive with more ports added to the system. Large capacity systems are, thus, usually more easily afforded by larger companies. However, even large companies may not generally be willing to spend a very large sum of money for an IVR system with the total number of ports required to handle the company's expected peek call volume. Thus, IVRs are typically purchased considering only average call volumes. While many consumer's calls will be answered by these IVRs, there will still be occasions when the consumer's call is placed on hold for a long time, or, even worse, the call is not answered at all.
Another disadvantage of the necessity of holding ports and circuits open is the expense generally connected with the open telephone circuit, especially when a wireless telephone is connected to a traditional IVR application. While the cost of wireless communication is falling, users still typically pay to connect to the wireless network, even for calls to the user.
In consideration of the limitations of the current technology in IVRs, it would be desirable to have an IVR application that did not have a capacity limited by the number of ports installed on the IVR system.
It would be a further advantage to have an IVR system that was not required to maintain a circuit connection between the calls and the calling service.